Anti-Social Music and His Name is Alive join forces for a three-day four-event residency in New York City called COME OUT THE WILDERNESS, starting with a peaceful prayer meditation in a park, ending with a midnight bell jam in the street and with shows at Mercury Lounge and Tonic in between.

Help celebrate INTERNATIONAL PEACE WEEK with punk-chamber music group Anti-Social Music (ASM), and Detroit based band His Name Is Alive (HNIA) who will provide everything from earth-toned outdoor folk music to mountains of extreme sunshine jams. COME OUT THE WILDERNESS is a performance based piece and a three day celebration of peace, nature, wolves, chamber music, and magical vibrations!!!

ARTIST STATEMENT by warn defever“COME OUT THE WILDERNESS” is performance/event oriented piece that celebrates a child’s earliest memories, a primal love/fear of nature, and hope for a peaceful world. It was originally conceived as a “peace conference.”

In 1972, when I was three years old, my mother gave birth to twin boys. Several monthes later during a Labor Day vacation, my family was visiting relatives in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan, and one of the twins, Michael, was attacked and killed by a wolf, commonly found in the northern region of the state. His brother, Matthew, survived somehow. Upon arriving back in the Detroit area and shortly following the funeral, my parents changed my middle name to Michael, as a sort of memorial. This experience is one of my earliest memories.

In 2002, I attended a “peace walk” led by Thich Nhat Hanh, a gentle monk from Vietnam whose vaguely Buddhist writings teach that world peace can only be brought about through individual internal transformation. The deceptively simplistic nature of this act profoundly affected my life.

In 2005, I found a folk song, performed by Mississippi Fred MacDowell called Come Out Of The Wilderness, in which the Wilderness seems to be a metaphor for living without religion in your life. The Wilderness as depicted in the Bible is where Jesus is tested for 40 days and where the Israelites spend 40 years on their journey to the Promised Land. In my piece the Wilderness is not a metaphor but simply refers to nature, the woods, organic food, and drinking fermented “muddy water out of a hollow log.”

NOTES1. A peace walk is a form of non-violent protest in which protesters march a distance, often to raise money for a charity.2. HIS NAME IS ALIVE are a difficult band to categorize. Their sound is constantly evolving. Their sound is consistently unique. They made their name with expressionistic experiments for the 4ad label. Later music is guided by more graceful concerns.3. Wilderness is defined by the State of Michigan as “non-managed, roadless areas.”4. COME OUT THE WILDERNESS is not a “staged” event, it is participatory and requires very few materials.19th PEACE WALK at noon*introduction/ initiation + silent meditation in the park in the sunrays*Empire-Fulton Ferry Park19th EXTREME CONCERT*HNIA / ASM live sets, come early, bring tambourines*Mercury Lounge MANHATTAN

20th QUIET NIGHT*ASM performs “After Devil’s Night” by Warn Defever*Tonic MANHATTANwith The Naysayer and Nanang Tatang21st MIDNIGHT BELL JAM*conclusion celebration in the street at midnight*Meet at the corner of Stanton and Ludlow in the street in MANHATTANMargaritas to go!!! Bring a bell!!!

COME OUT THE WILDERNESS is supported in part by Meet the Composer’s Creative Connections Program, NYSCA, and the Meet the Composer JPMorganChase Fund for Small Ensembles.

I don’t know how to get rid of that HUGE space above the player, so please bear with it. If you are reading this entry through a “reader,” make sure you visit the actual blog so you can listen to the songs!

Synchronicity allowed for a poignant and emotional afternoon with ADEM the other day, drawing together Cyprus, Nick, and I into a kind, poetic, reunion of sorts. Nearly every song Adem sang carried with it a bittersweet burn of relevance as can be seen in the lyrics, below. He is very impressive, Live. A mournful, sweet, melancholic, but inspiring tone that carries his story-songs right into your heart. For my metaphysical pals, I think you will really love THESE LIGHTS ARE MEANINGFUL, and to my friends who’ve known my recent struggles and efforts to rebuild, I think you will hear the story in EVERYTHING YOU NEED.

Siggh… I am so grateful for so many things, even in the wake of so much struggle… it’s all a matter of perspective. I know I lose perspective, sometimes, but a very strong part of me counts on the memory of when I have perspective, and songs like these, artists, and friends, all help to keep that web of memory and strength in place, even when I feel so lost and silly-scared.

It’s good to remember that you will see things differently, if you just hang in there…

ADEM @ SoundFix Records in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

NICK, Me, T.Lee (from-out-of-town guest), and CYPRUS

LYRICS

EVERYTHING YOU NEED

Home is where your heart comes fromBut what do you do when your heart’s goneWith everything you need

You upped, you left, you went awayTo love to fight another day‘gainst everything you need

Laa daa day laa daa daylaa daa day laa daa day

You severed your tiesLeft us all behindYou said all your goodbyesTo everything you needYou severed your tiesRe-forge themmake it rightCome back with open eyesTo everything you need

’cause moments they can turn to dreamsAnd hopes and wants can sometimes seemLike everything you needBut treated bad then left aloneYou cried, we said to come back homeTo everything you need

Laa daa day laa daa daylaa daa day laa daa day

You severed your tiesYou left us all behindYou said all your goodbyesTo everything you needYou severed your tiesRe-forge themmake it rightCome back with open eyesTo everything you need

LOVE, And OTHER PLANETS

Come with meThere’s something you should seeIn the evening skyPut on your warmest coatWe’?ll be breathing ghostsAnd they don’t want us to seeSo they join the cloudsWhich clot above our heads

But on a clear night,If you look close enoughYou can just make out LoveAnd other planetsWe are not alone

And normallyIt’s bright enough to seeWith a naked eyeI held you close to meAnd I felt you smileAnd you whispered in my earI know it’s thereLet’?s make our own light

But on a clear nightIf you look close enoughYou can just make outLove and other planetsWe are not aloneAnd on this clear nightIf I hold you close enoughI can feel love.

THESE ARE YOUR FRIENDS

I wish that I’d arrived a little sooner –You really should have calledwe’d have come here right awayYou tried to help yourself but you got it wrong

You’ve thrown yourselfInto the flames ’cause you’re covered in coldBut these are your friendsThey give out a nice warm glow

You’ve tried so hard to see for yourselfYour perspective is wrongThese are your friendsLet them come guide you on

Listen now – now’s the time to listenThere’re lessons to be learnedI’ve seen this before in my own lifeYou feel covered up, removed from the world around youWith all your senses dulled you’d do anything to feelYou tried to help yourself, but you got it wrong

You’ve thrown yourselfInto the flames ’cause you’re covered in coldBut these are your friendsThey give out a nice warm glow

What have you done? You’re cutting your cordYou’re floating in spaceBut these are your friendsThey’ll be your star-map home

Everybody needs some help sometimes

THESE LIGHTS ARE MEANINGFUL

I know that I’ve Not been the same Since the day we walked around and marvelled at the firmament

Both wrapped up In a blanket that was handed down And it struck me like a meteor

It’s hard to explain, so hard to explain how I’m so sure

These lights are meaningful We’?ve got to understand And work out what they say These lights are meaningful They’?ll tell what we forgot We have a mission here These lights are meaningful We must translate them now Else we’ll just float around

We have a reason here Something beyond ourselves These lights are meaningful

I needed purpose, I was given one: To find the reasons for life Etched between the distant suns and… The Zodiac gives clues to the wealth of all that once we knewJoin silver dots set against the midnight blue

It’?s hard to explain; so hard to explain how I’m so sure

These lights are meaningful We have forgot ourselves We drift on oblivious These lights are meaningful A message writ out large Lest we forget ourselves These lights are meaningful This is our final chance We had a mission here once

There not just pretty sparks They’re more than tiny stars These lights are meaningful We have a reason here We must resolve ourselvesThese lights are meaningful

Maybe I got it wrong Maybe I am just alone Anything to feel alive Take my hand and take me home Make me feel like I’?m not alone

In keeping with my Dancer in the Dark/Bjork mood, I found this beautiful LIVE version of THE PLEASURE IS ALL MINE, from Bjork’s album MEDULLA. Medulla is an album created by Bjork using ONLY vocals as the medium for ALL of the sounds, including those sounds that seem “electronic.” As you can see in this video, she is working with a “human beatbox” for sound effects and rhythms, an impressive choir of voices, and an Inuit “Throat Singer” laces it all together. There are no instruments used in this, except voices.

Here are the lyrics:

The pleasure is all mine to get to be the generous one is the strongest stance